How to leave for Christmas vacation without stress

The Christmas vacation is just around the corner, and it should be filled with happiness and cheer. It might be challenging to get in Christmas mood, if you had to leave loads of work on your desk, when you left for vacation.

Work tasks are piling up. The desk is filled with yellow post it notes and to do lists. For some mystical reason, the Christmas break always comes as a surprise for most people. December came and went with lightning speed and all of a sudden Christmas is knocking on the door.

It might be stressful to leave for Christmas vacation, but it does not have to be. Here are 6 pieces of advice on how to leave for Christmas vacation without stress.

How to plan and put your mind at rest:

1) It is important to be realistic about how many tasks you can solve before your vacation. Get an overview of all your tasks and make a prioritised list. Not all tasks are equally important. There will be tasks that can wait until you get back and tasks you can delegate.

2) Match expectations with your surroundings, both internally in the organisation and externally. Let people know when you are on vacation and when the last deadline is for tasks to be handled before the vacation, and also which tasks you postpone till 2018.

3) Make your calendar and mail ready for the vacation. Remember to enable out of office replies in the mailbox. It may be a good idea to enable it a few hours before you leave, so you have the time needed to finish the last tasks. Remember to update your public holiday calendar in TimeLog, so it is ready for 2018.

4) Before leaving for vacation, it is a good idea to book time for reading and answering e-mails once you are back. Book one or more two hours slots to read and answer e-mails. If you book your time directly in the TimeLog Tracker for Outlook, then both you and your colleagues will have the right overview of your workload in the beginning of the year, as the entries in Outlook are automatically transferred to the resource planner in TimeLog.

5) Prioritise and plan upcoming work tasks, so you avoid confusion and stress when you get back after the vacation. Make a list of the projects you need to start in the beginning of the new year. Prioritise the list and book time in your calendar.

6) Are you the type who uses the quiet periods to upgrade your knowledge?

The normal work day does not leave much room for viewing the really exiting webinar or reading the interesting e-book you have bookmarked a while ago. We are a few people who find rest in concentrating on relevant knowledge; are you one of us, we have collected a few ideas for your vacation reading here: